By Daniel S. Mariaschin, B’nai B’rith International CEO

On the eve of the B’nai B’rith mission to advocate for Israel at U.N. satellite offices in Geneva, CEO Daniel S. Mariaschin decried the inclusion of the teaching of what is called the “Palestinian Genocide” in a proposed bill in his home state of New Hampshire, yet another instance of defamation and false charges made against the Jewish homeland.

As I write this, we’re about to depart for Geneva and meetings at the United Nations Human Rights Council, where bias against, and demonizing of Israel, are near-daily occurrences. Our B’nai B’rith delegation, in its face-to-face meetings with dozens of diplomats, will speak truth to power in the face of a global avalanche of distortions, blood libels and outright anti-Semitism.

Here at home, as well as abroad, the big lie express just keeps chugging along.

The blood-libelous charge that Israel has committed genocide in Gaza has spawned a garden industry of hateful variants in places you’d expect, and in others, unexpected.

Take, for example, what the New Hampshire State Legislature considered in early March: an amendment that would require the teaching of the “Palestinian genocide” in the state school system. The actual wording of the measure reads:

“Such instruction shall include at least 5 hours of study to include, at minimum, instruction of the United Nations (U.N.) definition of genocide, the U.N. resolution on human rights, the Holocaust (and other Nazi committed genocides), the Armenian genocide, the Rwandan genocide, the genocide of indigenous peoples in the United States, and the Palestinian genocide.”

Just in that one paragraph, there are two issues that immediately arise. The first: the U.N. definition of genocide—drafted largely by Polish-born Raphael Lemkin (the Jewish human rights activist who lost his entire family in the Holocaust)—centers around the “intent to destroy in whole or in part, a national ethnical, racial or religious group, as such.”

Israel had no intention to commit genocide in Gaza. If it had, its air force could have concluded the war there in a few days. Its scrupulous efforts to avoid civilian casualties—the “knock on the roof,” leaflets warning them to vacate ahead of an impending action, e-mails, text messages and phone calls to civilians were met by the massive use of human shields by the Hamas terrorists, who placed no value on the lives of their fellow Palestinians. Instead, the IDF has taken hundreds of casualties in ferreting out terrorists from hundreds of miles of tunnels, and from schools, mosques, hospitals and apartment blocks.

Indeed, if it’s genocidal intent we are talking about, then we must look at Hamas, with its bloodthirsty objective of killing Israelis, resulting in the carnage of Oct. 7. Had Hamas not been stopped, it is likely that the terrorists would have gone on to Tel Aviv and its suburbs to carry out their murderous ways.

The second issue that must be addressed in the New Hampshire legislative amendment is that of equivalence. The drafters of this amendment had the unmitigated gall to compare the Holocaust, and its six years of relentless murder of the Jews of Europe, with Israel’s defensive war in Gaza, responding to the Hamas crimes on Oct. 7.

The inflated casualty figures trumpeted daily by the “Gaza (Hamas) Ministry of Health,” purposefully conflated the high numbers of terrorist killed with those Palestinians who died of natural causes during the 17 months of fighting, along with others who were killed in the course of the war. Strenuous efforts by many to set the record straight have been met by a global “don’t confuse me with the facts” response, or worse, millions of people buying, whole cloth, the lies of Hamas and its fellow travelers.

The director of West Point’s respected Institute for Urban Warfare, John Spencer, said early on that the ratio of combatants killed to civilians in Gaza was the lowest in history, underlining Israel’s careful approach to going out of its way to avoid civilian casualties. No matter: Spencer’s expert analysis had little resonance in the camps of the Israel bashers and professional haters.

But the blood libel lives on, especially at the International Court of Justice and the International Criminal Court, where Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and former Defense Minister Yoav Gallant face arrest warrants for supposedly causing starvation in Gaza, considered “war crimes” under international law. These charges fly fully in the face of the facts: thousands of trucks were and are delivering food and water to Gazans in the middle of a war, surely a first in modern warfare. Many of the provisions have been stolen by Hamas, which, while attacking Israelis and holding hundreds of hostages, profited mightily from its black marketeering of international aid to its own people.

If this amendment in the New Hampshire legislature is adopted, what is it that schoolteachers will be imparting to their students? With no actual genocide to teach, they will be spreading a virus of hate by perpetuating bald-faced lies and calumnies against Israel and its people and, yes, against the entire Jewish people. These classrooms will send students off to university campuses, where many may wind up in pro-Hamas “encampments.” And then they will graduate, perhaps many becoming teachers themselves, joining the blood libel conveyor belt, wittingly or unwittingly raising the level of anti-Semitism.

Though I was born in New York, I consider myself to be a proud son of New Hampshire, where I was raised and where I received my undergraduate degree. It is a state rich in natural beauty and American history; it was the ninth state to ratify the new constitution, in 1788, replacing the Articles of Confederation. This ratification led to the establishment of the United States.

New Hampshire’s motto, “Live Free or Die,” words attributed to Gen. John Stark, a hero of the American Revolution. If he were to witness the introduction of this mindless, pro-Palestinian amendment—which demonizes a people for defending itself from genocidal terrorists and lauds the victimizers and not the victims—Stark would surely recoil at the dishonesty and hypocrisy contained within it.

I surely did. There is no place in American education for teaching purposely false narratives, particularly those which fan the flames of hatred. Unfortunately, and sadly, the New Hampshire legislative amendment will most likely not be the last of its kind.